Félix Marcilhac is one of the greatest Art Deco dealers in the world—which explains why Yves Saint Laurent, Andy Warhol, and others relied on his expertise to ornament their rooms. All of that’s in the past, however, now that he and his wife, Noëlle, are retiring to Marrakech, leaving Galerie Marcilhac in the care of two of their children and selling the contents of their storied Paris residence at Sotheby’s on March 11 and 12.

The 316 lots are a jaw-dropping parade of rarefied names, exotic materials, and head-spinning provenance—including a 1926 bronze Gustave Miklos sculpture once owned by fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin and a flamboyant clock that Jean Dunand designed in 1913 for another couture eminence, Jean-Philippe Worth.

Control freaks may blanch, but the Marcilhacs raised their four children amid these splendors with as much responsible casualness as possible. Félix Marcilhac explains, “We tried to teach them that everything we owned was banalisé, ordinary furnishings that we live with but which we also take care of.” That being said, he adds that when his son and three daughters were young, “between the ages of five and ten, they weren’t allowed on the first floor of the house. After that, their revenge was to invite their friends all the time. Nothing was ever broken, thank God.”